Political Party Networks and Human Development in Young Democracies: Evidence from Bosnia and Herzegovina

According to mainstream theories, democracy improves human development because electoral competition strengthens accountability of politicians to citizens: If politicians do not improve citizen welfare, they risk losing power. These approaches, however, neglect pathologies of political competition in many young democracies where citizen participation is low and corruption of parties high, thus reducing political responsiveness to broad societal interests. I argue that in such environments, development is driven by <italic>partisan accountability<italic> whereby politicians remain loyal to party leaders since they control candidate lists and funnel resources to lower level politicians. Pro-development practices are adopted only to the extent that they improve a party's re-election chances and maximize its expropriation of budgetary resources. I provide preliminary evidence from the local level in Bosnia and Herzegovina, which suggests that vertical, intra-party relations between mayors and regional governments improve local business environments, while inter-party diversity in decision-making bodies increases political fragmentation and unemployment.

Creator

Auerbach, KiranAffiliation: Department of Political Science
College of Arts and Sciences

Degree granting institution

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Graduate School

Thesis advisor

Robertson, Graeme

Vachudová, Milada Anna

Stephens, John

Jenkins, Robert

Title

Political Party Networks and Human Development in Young Democracies: Evidence from Bosnia and Herzegovina

Subject

Political science

Language

English

Type of Resource

text

Genre

Masters Thesis

Pdf

Auerbach_unc_0153M_14813.pdf

Publisher

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Graduate School

Place of Publication

Chapel Hill, NC

Date Graduated

2014

Publication Date

2014-08

Keywords

Bosnia and Herzegovina, democracy, development, political accountability, political participation, political parties